A visitor from Queensland took out the annual S80’s Legends Race last Wednesday. Ray Smith, a past president of the S80 Association, won last minute approval to fly to WA for a business conference when WA opened its borders to Queensland. He was quickly teamed up with Etchells sailor Alan Smith, mainsheet trimmer Mike Hughes and past champion Simon Sutherland and given the association’s training boat, Grand Piano, for the event.
Although they started mid fleet, they steadily worked their way to the front to win comfortably.
Less comfortable was our own past commodore Gerry Drysdale, who clearly won the start but spent most of the race being monstered by Will Hammond.
Sailing a masterful final leg along the freeway, Gerry claimed second place by a couple of boat lengths.
A feature of the day was a photo retrospective set up by John Holder.
Read the full story in the next issue of Soundings.
